Anna Magnani in OPEN CITY
>>Yes, King Kong in PJ’s new ‘K.K.’<<
I’ll take the death scene in the original over Jackson’s milked-for-every-last-drop-of-bathos climax.
I felt like shouting out (a la SEINFELD), “Die, already!”
Mifune’s death in Seven Samurai
Nakadai in Sanjuro and Harakiri along with his sun in law in Harakiri
The Bunch in The Wild Bunch (Great)
The Brother’s death in Eastern Promises
Most of the deaths in Battles Without Honor or Humanity all five films
Henry Fonda in Once Upon a Time in The West
Paul Dano in There Will be Blood
DiCaprio in The Departed
Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
I could go on but these are the best in my opinion.
Pat Hingle(Eva Axén) in the first fifteen minutes of Suspiria. I would not say its my favorite ,but its is certainly memorable a beautifully stylized and grusome opening to one of the most infulential horror films ever (don’t care if you disagree). My Favorite death scene would have to be Norris(Charles Hallahan) and Dr. Copper’s(Richard Dysart) death scene in John Carpenter’s The Thing. one of the biggest What The Fuck! moments for me in my movie viewing history.
edward g. robinson, the end of rico-little caesar
cagney white heat and the public enemy
juanita moore-imitation of life
robert walker-strangers on a train
Just off the top of my head, Cagney’s death in The Roaring Twenties is pretty great, one of my favourites and one of the best I think. He’s been shot, he staggers down the snowy street to the snowy steps of a church, dies in Gladys George’s arms in an image just like a pietà (Raoul Walsh boy!), as a policeman asks her what Cagney’s business was she replies, “He use to be a big shot.” THE END! God, I love that fucking movie! If I ever see it on TCM or something I’ll watch it right through just to see the last 30 seconds of it….so please RUN don’t crawl and get this gem.
the end of howling 5 with the crossbow!
Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (death by arrows)
Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (Romeo, then Juliet)
Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (motorcycle accident at the opening scene: Daud the Bedouin boy swallowed up by sand)
Neumann’s The Fly (the fly screaming for help as the spider approaches)
Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (the ending)
Miller’s 300 (the battle scene, King Leonidas’s soldiers defending Sparta)
Michell’s Venus (death of Maurice by the sea)
Best non-death scene: Penn’s Little Big Man (Old Lodge Skins decides to die but it starts raining.)
Sean Bean as Boromir on The Fellowship of the Ring
Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis on Thelma and Louise
David Carradine in Kill Bill vol. 2
Yeah, Anna Magnani in Open City. I think we have a winner.
Michael having the heads of the five families murdered while he’s at a baptism. The Godfather
Taxi Driver- ‘Shooting Gallery’
Goodfellas- Billy Batts getting the shit stabbed out of him by Tommy.
Although the movie sucked, Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading.
EDWARD G. ROBINSON IN LITTLE CEASR, (I’M NOT TOO SURE WITH THE NAME OF THE MOVIE?.
He says: IS THIS THE END OF RICCO???
Samuel L. Jackson in Deep Blue Sea. Terrible movie, awesome death scene.
My favorite: Peter Sellers in the beginnig of The Party.
Grey Daisies: You have found my favourite, too! That scene has sent me into hysterics more than once.
The Killers death at the end of Peeping Tom, with the various films playing in the backround, has always been one of my favorite death scenes.
Robert Blake’s death in ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE, Tatsuya Nakadai in HARAKIRI , Barry Newman in VANISHING POINT, Paul Newman in COOL HAND LUKE and HOMBRE , Warren Oats in BRING ME HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA
- The first death scene in “Suspiria” (any of the deaths, in fact)
- “Psycho”
- The final scene in “Mulholland Drive”
- The final scene in “August Underground’s Penance”
- Kevin Bacon’s gruesome demise in “Friday the 13th”
“Garbage Day”!
Tatsuya Nakadai’s final battle in Harakiri. Memorable for what it means, and what happens after. Plus, the armor.
Liberty Valance
A second to Barry Newman’s death in Vanishing Point. Also, in Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter, the last guy to down when The Stranger (Eastwood) blasts three men while getting a shave in a barbers chair. I’ve never seen a more milked death scene. Pay particular attention to his head.
Sonny Corleone in Godfather 1
Shane in “Shane”. Yes, he’s dead at the end. Just accept it.
Dean Keaton in The Usual Suspects. “I can’t feel my legs…Keyzer”
Dudley Smith in L.A. Confidential. Seconds before being shot in the back “Hold up your badge, so they’ll know you’re a policeman”
Slim Pickens, “Dr. Strangelove”.
Grey Daisies, I love it—Peter Sellers in the beginning of The Party, that whole movie is a howl, one of my favorites.
On a darker note, Alain in Le Feu Follet. I think that entire film is a masterpiece on many levels. Two other really heart-wrenching deaths are the donkey in Au Hasard Balthazar and Giuletta Massina’s character in La Strada. Ug, so difficult to watch.
Carl Showalter’s unfortunate axe-attack and subsequent afterlife as a woodchipper snack—Fargo.
Also:
-Sonny Corleone in The Godfather
-All the deaths in Jaws
And…Mufasa’s death in The Lion King. Breaks my little heart.
Alec Baldwin in the spa in Married to the Mob: “Tony, I loved you like a father!”.
Yeah, Leigh in Psycho, of course. Novak in Vertigo. So many in Hitchcock (can Rains in Notorious be counted), but the opening murder in Rope stays on my brain, probably because its presence is never absent from the movie. Dr. Strangelove—the death of the world, but within that Slim Pickens’s is quite memorable, funny, and in perfect keeping with tone and context. Quilty in Lolita sort of the same. Shane, yes. Cagney in White Heat and The Public Enemy. And others already mentioned.
The original Ladykillers: the dispensing of all in the gang, but esp. Lom and Guinness. Kind Hearts and Coronets—so many, but the final unseen death is choice. Gregory Peck in The Gunfighter (with Brownsville Girl playing in the background), and for that matter, Peck and Jones in Duel in the Sun (yeah, it’s over the top, camp, and out of the warp and woof of the persona of the two stars but that’s why it’s memorable). Holden in Sunset Blvd., MacMurray in Double Indemnity. Raft and henchmen in Some Like It Hot. Don Ameche in Heaven Can Wait. Jimmy Durante in Mad…Mad World. George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life (nothing metaphorical meant here; the fantasy sequence).
The father’s death in How Green Was My Valley was simply magnificent. Fonda staying true to himself in Fort Apache. Scar in The Searchers (esp. the mutilation of him by Wayne is shocking because you immediately realize how right it is for the Wayne character). Joel McCrea in Ride the High Country. Herbert Marshall in The Little Foxes (because of Bette Davis’s character’s reaction). Orson Welles in Touch of Evil (and Third Man, of course).
Mitchum and Greer playing out their string in Out of the Past. Mitchum and Simmons in Angel Face. Dana Andrews in The Ox-Bow Incident, a young man trying to maintain his dignity while in terror. What’s her name in Detour. Dall and Cummings in Gun Crazy.
Gary Cooper killing Lee J. Cobb in Man of the West and Karl Malden in The Hanging Tree (I realize Daves is not auteur certified but this is an excellent movie that deserves to be remembered). Gives you the same intense feeling that justice is being meted out as that of Hoffman dispensing of the Cornwallian Crackers in Straw Dogs.
john brown
Tatsuyo Nakadai in final scene of Kurosawa’s ‘Sanjuro’! Also, the 3 on-screen samurai deaths in ‘Seven Samurai’…
Yes, King Kong in PJ’s new ‘K.K.’, Brad Pitt in ‘B.A.R.’, and L. DiCaprio’s in ‘The Departed’ – very memorable.
Alan Rickman in ‘Die Hard’, Orson in ‘Third Man’, Joe Cotten in ‘Shadow of a Doubt’…
And, being a huge Toshiro Mifune fan, TM’s demise in ’Japan’s Longest Day’…